canteen. "I had all the papers publish an article over my signature," says the Chief, "that any criticism of the Red Cross should be addressed to the Bureau of Investigation at Washington. For this I have been commended by the Red Cross membership." It appears that he ought to be commended for his own record, which, on the face of it, is in the blue-ribbon class.
NORTH CAROLINA
Lexington, N. C., is in the southern mountains. The Chief says: "Owing to the peculiar reaction of the mountaineer's philosophy to the draft laws, many of them 'stepped back' into the 'brush' to wait until the war was over. We spent much time in traveling around among the lumber jacks and sent out word to many delinquents. It was a simple thing to reach most of these men through the medium of some trusted friend—much simpler than sending armed men into the laurel thickets after the fugitives. I don't believe there is one case out of ten in western North Carolina where any of our men avoided the draft through a malicious motive. Whenever a friendly adviser could reach them to explain the situation, the majority of them gladly came out. We often made trips of from thirty to fifty miles into the isolated sections. At one point thirty miles from a railroad we got information which was sent across the sea to France and stopped an undesirable appointee to Y. M. C. A. work there. Some humorous things came up in our mountain travels. One day our road dwindled to an almost obliterated trail with grass growing all over it. We sighted an old woman, the first human being seen for several hours, and asked her if that was the right way to Doeville. The old woman looked at us with great contempt, and remarked: "Lord bless us, you-all is right in Doeville dis minute!"
The Chief of Lexington says that not everyone understands the mountain boys and that they certainly make excellent fighters when in the army. "One of them in my district," reports the Chief, "had to be run down and captured by his own father, who delivered him over to the authorities for military service. This boy was the first of his company to distinguish himself in France."
